The present invention relates to a stowable vehicle seat and particularly to a stowable vehicle seat that has improved operability.
A stowable vehicle seat has been known, as is a technique in which a front-side leg portion that is lockable and unlockable from a vehicle body floor side is disposed on the front side of a seat cushion forming the stowable vehicle seat and a support portion rotatable in the front-and-rear direction on the front side of a containing recess portion (stowage recess portion) formed in the vehicle body floor is disposed on the rear end portion side thereof, lock of the front-side leg portion is unlocked, and the vehicle seat is rotated rearward and contained in the containing recess portion in a state in which a seat back is folded onto the seat cushion, for example.
That is, the prior-art stowable vehicle seat is, as shown in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-082698 (“the '698 Publication”), configured such that lock of the front-side leg portion to the vehicle body floor side is unlocked by a lever operation and the seat back is folded by a pulling operation of a strap, while the seat cushion is rotated rearward at the same time around rotating shafts disposed on the right and left sides of the rear end portion of the seat cushion so that the vehicle seat is containable in the containing recess portion.
The technique described in the '698 Publication is configured such that reclining lock is unlocked by the pulling operation of the strap, the seat back is folded onto the seat cushion, and the vehicle seat is rotated rearward and operated to be stowed, but since it is configured such that the vehicle seat is rotated rearward with the reclining lock unlocked, a problem might occur in that the folded vehicle seat is opened again during the stowing operation and becomes difficult to be contained.